This week’s newsletter for Rossall Nursery, Pre-Prep and Prep School.
Dear All,
What a wonderful first few days back in School! The sun has been shining, the children and staff have returned with renewed optimism and energy, and the term ahead promises so much. Once again, we have welcomed some new pupils to our wonderful Prep School and our Nursery continues to thrive.
Last term almost seems like a lifetime ago! Finishing for Easter with our ‘world-famous’ egg rolling competition in front of a delighted parent body, was a lovely occasion. Of course this followed our magnificent performances of Oliver Jnr! An early night was called for from many of the children and staff, as we met in front of the Sports Centre at 1am for our Prep Ski Trip to Sestriere, Italy.
With the backdrop of Covid and the first time that many pupils had spent time away from home for well over two years (for some the first time they had ever stayed away), it was true testament to the children and staff, that we enjoyed such a fabulous week together.
The trip included (non-exhaustive list): skiing, pizza night, snowball fights, outdoor swimming, more skiing, a quiz, a treasure hunt, some more skiing, an awards ceremony, antipasti tasting, bingo, crepes, and finally skiing some green, blue, red, and black runs! All in all a truly wonderful trip with some incredible children and staff – thank you to everyone involved who helped to create some lifelong memories!
Despite the term only being three days old, the children in Year 6 have already been taking part in the second section of their Bikeability Course – congratulations to all those who are now safely able to ride, read the environment around them, and look after their bikes! We are eagerly looking forward to the music assembly concerts that will take place next Friday and the class photographs will be taken on Thursday (full winter uniform please). Our latest Clubs Programme for Pre-Prep and Prep begins on Monday. Welcome back to the Summer Term!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
Mr M Turner
Headmaster of Preparatory School & Nursery
A Charity Event in Support of Ukraine
Dear All,
As you are aware, Rossall School has been proactive in supporting those affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine. We continue to support families affected by the conflict and have launched the Rossall Ukrainian Hub, which is a social event hosted by our Headmaster and family where Ukrainians living in the local area can meet and make connections with each other.
As part of our ongoing efforts to provide much needed funds, in collaboration with Back Powder Gin in Weeton, we have organised a charity evening on Saturday 7th May. Half of the ticket price of £50 will go towards supporting our charity efforts, alongside all proceeds from the bar.
The evening includes a 3 course meal catered by Twelve Restaurant, a welcome drink on arrival, live entertainment, an auction and a raffle.
Prizes are still coming in and if you are able to offer anything for auction or raffle, we would be delighted to hear from you (please email me directly at [email protected]). Already on offer for the event we have a wonderful Airbnb weekend stay in the Lake District, a luxury Black Powder Gin Hamper, a 6 month gym membership and golf lessons, to name but a few!
Tickets are limited and we welcome individuals, couples, families, businesses; all members of our community to join together for a fabulous evening to support a very worthy cause.
Mr M Turner
Year 6
It was an absolutely delightful day for the start of the Summer Term. The sunshine and refreshed children brought real optimism into what is traditionally the fullest term of the year, and Year 6 has started off in the manner in which they mean to continue.
Thursday saw the return of “bikeability” after the postponement of the second day due to high winds. The children were delighted to have the opportunity to achieve their level 2 awards in superb spring conditions.
In the classroom we have continued our work on algebra, our preparing for our exhibition later in the term and begun work on the book “Manfish”. The fullness of the last three days are an indication of the business ahead!
Year 5
A sunny and warm welcome to the Summer Term. Can you believe that we are in the final term of Year 5 already!
The children returned to Rossall this week reenergised, rested and raring to go.
Fractions continue to be the order of the day in Mathematics. We have been solving some tricky word problems this week and are moving on to multiplying fractions next week.
We have enjoyed researching the astronaut and author of The Darkest Dark, Chris Hadfield’s life story this week and the children have written some super biographies about him. They were amazed to discover that the book was all about him and his crippling fear of the dark when he was a child. His ambition to become an astronaut was the driving force behind him conquering that fear.
Being in the dark can feel scary….. but it’s also an amazing place. The dark is where we see the stars and galaxies of our universe and get to wish on shooting stars. And it was quietly in the dark where I first decided who I was going to be and imagined all the things I could do. The dark is for dreams- and the morning is for making them come true.
Chris Hadfield
Year 4
Did you know that rainforests cover less than 3% of the planet, yet they are home to more than half our planet’s species?
This is just one of the amazing facts we have already uncovered during our new Topic in Year 4. We have hit the ground running at the start of our final term and our learning is focused on Tropical Rainforests. The children have been researching about what they are and where we can find them. They discovered that all of the rainforests we have are close to or on the Equator and concluded that this meant they must be very hot places! Using excellent map skills, the children plotted the world’s rainforests onto a world map and labelled which countries and continents they were in.
Our new English text, ‘Where the Forest Meets the Sea’ has inspired us to write some fabulous descriptive paragraphs using various settings and landscapes. We’re looking forward to seeing how this story unfolds!
In Art, the children have taken animals that we would find in a rainforest and completed symmetrical sketches. They have focused on sketching and shading, noticing all the detail and pattern that is required to complete each individual animal.
In Maths, we have begun our work on decimals and the children have been learning all about what a decimal number is and completing calculations using tenths.
We have a very busy term ahead of us and we are so looking forward to our final few weeks in Year 4!
Year 3
It’s hard to believe we are into the final term of Year 3!
And what a wonderful start to the Summer term we have had. We have welcomed 2 new pupils to our class: Tommy and Oleg, who have settled in beautifully.
We have started our new book for the term in English, Journey, and made our predictions. We have started our new topic about Modern Europe by planning our own train trips around Europe.
In Science, we are continuing our learning about plants this term, and this week we learnt about pollination. We played the game Busy Bees to act out how pollen is carried between flowers!
In Maths we are continuing to learn about measuring length and learnt about perimeter. We finished off the week with Art creating our own personal super heroes!
Well done for a fantastic first week back Year 3!
Year 2
What a fantastic start to the Summer term; we have had a wonderful three days of learning and enjoyed the sunshine too!
Our new topic ‘History of the Seaside’ has really captured our interests and we have started learn about features of a seaside holiday.
In Maths, we have started our new statistics unit and have been learning how to become statisticians by analysing data in tally charts and pictograms.
In Science, we have started our new unit on plants and have learned about the different kinds of seed dispersal. We also enjoyed creating our own dandelion and sycamore seeds and watching them float away in the wind.
Year 1
Welcome back. What a fantastic start to the term! The sun is shining, energy levels are high and Year 1 are ready and raring to go.
This term, our Science topic is plants. We had a lovely walk around the school campus comparing, observing and trying to identify different plants. We were amazed by all the different colours and types of plants we could find. We talked about parts of the plants and what they need to help them survive.
In Maths we have enjoyed working with a partner to solve measuring problems, using rulers to help us. In Language, we have finished writing our own versions of ‘The Lion Inside’. I have been really impressed with the children’s enthusiasm and creativity in their writing. Next week we will begin our new class book ‘Goldilocks and just the one bear’.
Reception
Patterns are central to maths and children have an instinctive idea of patterns.
Research shows that children’s ability to see patterns forms the basis of early mathematical thinking. When you teach children to become aware of patterns, they will build up the skill of spotting patterns for themselves, they will see how patterns change and notice irregularities.
This week we talked about, and identified the patterns around them, so we could learn the words that describe different patterns.
As children have become more confident in making patterns and seeing connections, they have been able to talk out loud about what they have noticed.
The lovely weather this week has allowed us to create patterns in the classroom and outside in nature, using a variety of different resources. I wonder if the children could make any more patterns this weekend?
Nursery
Every one of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves
Diana, Princess of Wales
Nursery have had a fun and active start to the summer term.
Sanderlings room have had lots of fun with Miss Schofield playing in gloop; using our senses to explore the different textures whilst encouraging communication and language skills. It was lots of fun – apologies if the children need extra long baths.
Sandpipers have enjoyed talking part in a walk in their forest schools session with Mx Preston, the children have discussed Earth day and all the things we can do to make ourselves more environmentally friendly, the children said “we could try to walk to nursery”. Miss Southern has been getting messy using lemons to paint. Mrs Meyer helped us to paint Blossom Tree pictures using broccoli.
Sparrows have been on a beach hunt with Miss Simpson and Mrs Smith to find Shark Eggs on Rossall Beach, it was very exciting, the children were experts at finding the eggs (we even thought that we had found dinosaur eggs). The children have also enjoyed yoga on the Prep School grass area around our favourite big tree with Miss Collins and Miss Simms, this was a part of our wellbeing Wednesday, we have also enjoyed making delicious banana smoothies.
